


Blindfold

by PrincessAutumnArcher



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Gender-neutral Reader, Kidnapping, M/M, Other, Secret Identity, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessAutumnArcher/pseuds/PrincessAutumnArcher
Summary: In their line of work, attachments are dangerous. Bucky knows this; it took him long enough to start tentatively thinking of his team as family, let alone acknowledging it. So why is he drawn to the mouthy heir who keeps getting kidnapped for some nefarious plot or another?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. The Heir

“We really gotta stop meeting like this.”

“Trust me, nothing would make me happier.”

The grin he throws you, all bright white teeth, lodges in your chest like a knife, but before you have time to think about the nuanced underpinnings of _that_ , your savior flicks out an _actual_ knife, saws through the zip ties cinching your wrists to each other and the pole behind you, and kneels to repeat the process on your ankles.

He allows you all of five seconds to rub the sore red lashes from your stiff joints before pulling you along, towing you behind him as he sets a breakneck pace down the dimly lit tunnel. You follow as best you can with pins and needles arcing up your calves, white-hot with static after being tied up for—hours? Days?

You shake your head slightly, discarding the latter thought: the first time he’d come to save you (three months ago now), you’d been handcuffed to an old bedframe in a warehouse for two days, and you’d had to pee _far_ more severely than you did now. You’d been a captive for mere hours, then, which you had to say was a distinct improvement.

You tell the Man as much, and his shoulder flexes, as though he thinks about slowing for an instant, before his incredulous eyes meet yours mid-step.

I’m risking my life for an insane person, he’s thinking. I should have let the counter tick down to zero with those zip ties intact. Saving this person is going to get me killed.

You know it already, know the conflict between heroic morals and self-preservation that’s bound to be waging in his brain. Pins and needles race up your limbs again in anticipation of being dropped once the clock gets too close for comfort.

But when his eyes lock onto yours, they’re sky blue and dizzyingly free of the great war you’d imagined.

“Fix the habit of getting yourself kidnapped every two weeks and we’ll talk,” he throws over his broad shoulder, his fingers still wrapped firmly around your wrist.

“It’s not a _habit_ ,” you protest, kicking up into a run with him at the abrupt, obnoxious blare of an alarm.

He scoffs, bright eyes rolling, but doesn’t offer a comeback. The alarm’s shrill shriek takes on another few decibels and a faint curse falls from his lips, the black word stamped out to dust under your pounding soles.

You round a corner and immediately wince, throwing up a hand to shield your eyes; daylight floods over your retinas, white as snow and nowhere near as soft.

“Sorry, doll, I’ve gotta get a little more hands-on.”

And with that, the Man hefts you up over his shoulder and takes off into the light, feet hammering on the ground like war drums before you feel his legs bunch up beneath you and explode outwards with a grunt.

The giant leap he takes has two immediate effects: first, it plunges you directly into the blinding white sea of light you’d recoiled from, effectively rendering your eyes useless for a few more seconds. Second, it reduces your sense of stability to zero; with a yelp you wish sounded just a _little_ more dignified, you scramble for something, anything to grab onto, and wind up wrapping your arms around flesh—thick muscle, stretching under your frantic fingertips.

The Man laughs, a grainy, rolling sound like the tumble of roasted coffee beans against a grinder, and warns, “Tickle me and I might just drop you.”

Undiluted, paralyzing panic shoots through you and you stiffen; his hands immediately contour to you, holding you securely against him, and you recognize the punchy joking tone in his voice.

“Quit tossing me in the air without any warning and we’ll talk,” you snap without any real heat, any venom a byproduct of your still-processing shock and terror.

Your comment prompts another soft chuckle and a tightening of his grip against your thighs. It’s almost reassuring.

The body under your clenched hands ripples and you try to distract yourself from the (still utterly terrifying) sensation of moving unsupported through the air by figuring out which part of your unknown knight in bulletproof armor you’ve got a death grip on.

The texture under your fingers is rough like canvas but stiff and hard, as though it’s pulled taut over a panel of metal—a bulletproof vest? As if in answer to your question, the edge of a secondary strap hits the heel of your palm and the Man’s abdomen jerks under the flat of your hand as he grunts sharply.

“You trying to cop a feel?” he asks. His voice is light but there’s a gruffness layered in it; you’re very close to stepping over a line and you know it.

“No,” you squawk, very aware of how much your survival currently depends on this man’s benevolence towards you. “No, I was just trying to get a better grip—and you know, make sure I _don’t fall out of the sky_!”

Your indignation flares up, as does his when he objects, “Hey, I got you. Don’t cha trust me?”

You can picture the glint in his eyes as he says it—a clever, crooked arc like a crescent moon hung low and lingering in summer sky. The color of that sky—stronger than cerulean, less temperamental than turquoise—fills in your mental vision, touching all the other unseen contours of his face (the hint of a wide, straight nose, a square jaw whose edge lay fuzzy with stubble, even in shadow).

Even though you still don’t _really_ know what he looks like, this little detail makes it unbelievably easy to answer his question.

“Yeah. I don’t think I should, but I do.”

It slips out from your mouth like a hasty sip of water, and for a second the Man is so silent you think that you’ve made a grave error—perhaps the last one you’ll ever have the privilege of making.

But then he clears his throat and says, in a way that says he’s trying too hard to sound normal, “You can open your eyes, you know.”

“What do—” Halfway into your rebuttal, your eyelids flutter open and you blink rapidly, realizing that you’d kept them screwed shut despite—well, despite _what_ , exactly, you don’t quite know, but your internal armchair psychologist mutters something about extreme fear and instinctual responses.

The first thing that floods your vision is a pane of smooth, unruffled blue, so perfect you wonder for a moment if it’s real; the second is the shiny, high-tech drone the Man is balancing on, and which is currently carrying the two of you on its back like some giant metal bird.

“Hey!” You punctuate your vexed outburst with an open palm to the Man under you; too late, with the sound of your slap and his “oof” resounding in the air, you realize that you’ve just smacked his ass, and none too gently.

He seems too shocked to kill you (or drop you, for that matter), so you seize the moment and barrel onwards. “You threatened to drop me!”

A surprised laugh rattles from his throat, his hands loosening on you so that you grab back onto his waist and cling there.

“That was for tickling me,” he says after a while, as though it’s painfully obvious and he’s taking pity on you by pointing it out. Something mischievous and not wholly tame licks at his voice when he adds, “What do you think that spank oughta get you?”

An accent thickens his words, molds the end of “get” and beginning of “you” into one bite like the chew of a candy apple, leaning heavy on the vowels so that they slide into one another. Even in the heart-stopping, apprehensive thrill of the moment, you file away this detail and add it to your mental portrait of the Man.

You bite on your tongue so you don’t stammer—babble, really—but just as you’ve got a suitably cocky response ready to deliver, there’s a low whine from the drone and the Man announces, “Thank you for flying Rescue Air, we have reached our destination.”

He steps down with you still slung over his shoulder ( _Like Santa Claus and his sack of presents_ , you think bizarrely) and tells you, “I’m going to put you down.”

“Okay,” you mutter, dreading what comes next; it’s like a dance at this point, with both of you so well-practiced that you could do this with your eyes closed—which ironically, would make his job easier.

He bends until your feet touch the ground; you adjust your weight and let go of him, ready to stand up as he slips the black, lightproof hood over your head. Instead, he pauses, one heavy hand on your lower back keeping you bent; your nerves kick into overdrive with every prolonged second that your rhythm deviates from the routine it’s always been.

Something rustles, followed by a dull _thunk_ as though he’s tossed something into the grass. Then, his voice, husky and urgent, hushed in a whisper although you can feel the hot pulse of his breath on your legs, hitting just above your knees.

“What color are my eyes?”

The answer tingles on the tip of your tongue, a shining secret like a pearl ready to tumble off into his waiting ears—but why does he want to know? Your mind races through the question lying behind the one he asked at the speed of light—obviously he knows what color his own eyes are, and it can’t be out of idle curiosity. Your memories of what usually comes next flash through your head—the hood blocking out your sight until it’s replaced by wraparound sunglasses, the woman who looks different every time but sounds exactly the same, the tea she gives you, the inevitable nap you always float into afterwards and the fuzziness that follows.

It’s what’s written on the note left for you when you wake up that decides you, though: _It’s for your safety._

You run your tongue over your lips, the color of the sky filling your mind, and answer the Man. “Brown.”

“My eyes are brown.”

It doesn’t sound entirely like a statement or a question. It just sounds like he’s waiting. Testing you.

“Well, you seem like a brown-eyed kind of guy,” you say innocently, shrugging your shoulders as best you can while still suspended at a vaguely forty-five degree angle; the Man had risen slightly from his own bend, pushing you up onto your tiptoes. “Want me to guess other stuff about you? You flex in the mirror when you pass by, you’re a dog person, and your favorite cookie is chocolate chi—”

“Alright, alright,” he interrupts, hands sliding from your back to your hips and putting you on the ground. He’s even faster than normal this time, slipping the hood over your head before you get a glimpse of his shoes or the grass under them; you straighten your spine and glare (hopefully at him).

“Just because I call out your indulgences in vanity doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to some fresh air,” you declare haughtily, planting your hands on your hips.

He chuckles from your left and loops an arm through one of the gaps created by your jutting elbows; it’s a surprisingly gentlemanly gesture and one that leaves you feeling awkwardly like a teenager going to prom.

“You’ll get plenty of fresh air soon,” he promises, and you tell yourself you’re imagining the added warmth in his words.

The steps he guides you in slow, and the clock—not a bomb timer this time—ticks louder in your ear, counting down the seconds you and the Man have left.

Leaves whisper softly under a newcomer’s light step and you feel time run out from between your fingertips.

Brightly, you squeeze the Man’s arm in the crook of your elbow and turn your face to him, smiling widely despite the fact that the hood hides your face entirely.

“So, same time next week?”

He doesn’t answer, but when you take another step forward, his arm doesn’t move with yours, staggering you back half a step.

A woman’s voice ( _the_ Woman) chimes in, smoky quartz rolling into a foreign language—a question, from the intonation, and the Man answers quietly, neither of their voices betraying any emotional clues.

You fight the urge to whip your head to and fro to follow the conversation, biting the inside of your cheek as you wonder what exactly you’ve gotten yourself into. Yes, being born into a significantly wealthy family, particularly one with a growing web of connections, came with its own set of hazards (being kidnapped on a near weekly basis, for example), but this was quickly adding up a little too high.

The Woman sighs and touches your arm; you start despite the gentleness of her fingers. Somehow, you don’t doubt that the same slender hand is more than capable of ripping your throat out given the right reason.

The hood is whisked away and before you can stop yourself, you turn to search behind yourself, but the Man is long gone—and besides, you doubt you’d be able to identify him based on what you have. When you twist back to face the Woman, her face wears something between exasperation and curiosity.

The mixture smooths into a flawless, friendly smile and she links her arm with yours just like the Man had—same gesture, but very different according to the responding neurons firing in your chest. You slide on the dark aviators she hands you without a word, suddenly numb.

“Ready?” she says, though it’s not really a question. No accent.

The rest of the journey proceeds as usual: she drives you home (today’s pass off was a very pretty copse God knows where, but far from the city), waits for you to unlock your door (why the secret agents don’t think the spare key hidden under your doormat is a liability, you’ll never know), and ushers you into your own home like a caring sister.

Usually, she’ll direct you into something resembling small talk while she bustles about your kitchen, preparing your tea, but today she guides you into a chair and then takes one opposite from you. Her legs curl up under her gracefully, like a cat, and you wonder who the Woman is, and who she is to the Man. Girlfriend? Wife? Sister?

A giddy thrill runs through you at the realization that you can drive a tentative wedge through the last thought with your new information: the Man has blue eyes, the Woman green. It’s not exactly hard evidence for or against anything, but it’s more knowledge than you had this morning.

“Anything interesting happen today?” she asks, as though she’s a friend you’re meeting for lunch, or your mother when you call home unannounced. Today the Woman’s hair is honey blond and long, tied back in a neat ponytail. You stare at it, suddenly afraid to meet her eyes.

“Aside from the whole abduction thing?” you ask her hair, switching your gaze to her shoulder (she’s _toned_ , you note with a faint pang of…envy? Awe? Resignation?) when she casually flips the blond tail behind her.

“Yeah, aside from that,” she replies coolly, almost bored. You half expect her to raise a hand to inspect her cuticles.

“Uh…”

Obviously, your mind lands on the Man’s deviations from the usual routine, but you’re not about to tell the Woman that. She purses her lips, eyes fixed on you ( _Cat! Major cat vibes!_ ) and you struggle to come up with something before she does something even more cat-like, like jump onto your face or knock over the empty coffee mug on the table between you.

“…they used zip ties this time?” you offer, holding out your cramped wrists, red marks still visible, like an offering.

She looks down at them flatly. Her lip twitches, and you can’t tell if she’s holding back laughter or anger. Either way, you’re morbidly fascinated and can’t quell the wave of dual alarm and relief that crashes over you when she lifts her green gaze to yours and smiles.

Her teeth glint in the sun as she tells you, voice back to concerned and sisterly, “Get some rest, you’ve had a long day.”

And with that, the Woman unfolds her long, lean legs from the chair and walks out, locking your door from the outside.

You stare after her until you hear her car purr back to life and drive away, and only then does your gaze fall again on the empty coffee mug precariously close to the edge of the table. You lean over and nudge it into safety, and it hits you.

She didn’t make you tea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffeeshop meet-cute? In _my_ story? It's more likely than you think. [insert disclaimer here]
> 
> (also hi kaycee. thanks for reading this. and keeping me accountable.)

“Didn’t know you were ticklish, Barnes!” Sam hoots as Bucky steps into the warehouse they’ve been using as a base of operations.

Bucky lobs his mask at him, keeping up a scowl until he can throw himself into one of the shapeless, ideally lumpy armchairs he and Steve had gotten from a moving sale in Palisades for twenty bucks. His glower melts as he settles in, but that doesn’t stop him from growling back at Sam, “Shut it, Birdboy.”

Sam just laughs in response, too entertained by Bucky’s latest escapade to feel any sting. “What, you gonna spank me?”

This time Bucky hurls his gloves, a solid baseball pitch that would have gotten him at least two bases. They smack the side of Sam’s chest with a satisfying _thwack_ , but before Bucky can fully enjoy his handiwork, Steve walks in with a pizza box and Natasha.

“Everything go okay?” he asks her, aware that the question comes out too quickly but not caring anyway.

Natasha looks at him in a bemused, knowing way that makes him rub his right hand roughly over the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” she says, deadly serious. “Why?”

_Oh, Jesus._

Sam and Steve both look over at that, laughter sliding off Sam’s face like water. Before the gravity on Steve’s face sets in too deep, Bucky cracks a grin and taps a light fist on Natasha’s shoulder.

“You took a while, I was worried Steve was chasing skirts instead of food.”

Sam howls in laughter and Steve makes a low sound caught somewhere between embarrassment and displeasure. He busies himself setting down the pizza before going off in search of cups and paper plates.

Bucky reaches for a slice, hoping to stake a claim before Sam gets up from the drone controls, but Natasha’s hand beats him to the box, sliding in front of the paper tab like a steel trap.

He looks up into her dry eyes, noting the full mouth quirked like an admonishment wrapped in warning. “You owe me a cup of coffee,” she says, and he hears what’s between the lines as clear as a church bell.

He suppresses a sigh of relief, but he knows Natasha can read it along with his gratitude in his eyes. “Tomorrow. That café on West 57th that you like, my treat.”

She makes a sound of resignation and lifts her hand from the box. He opens it and she darts in, grabbing the first slice; he doesn’t protest, just offers her a rueful, tentative smile.

Natasha doesn’t do anything as damning as smile back, just holds his gaze evenly as until she takes a bite of pizza. Bucky turns back to the box and slides one onto the paper plate Steve offers him as he and Sam return from digging out cold drinks from the cooler in the corner.

He can’t blame Natasha for being so upset; she has every reason to disapprove of what he’s doing—of what he’s asked her to be a part of. She hates every bit of this, despite (perhaps because of) how unnervingly brilliant she is at it. The secrecy, the duplicity, the shadow of betrayal threatening to crash down at any moment—it’s all bleeding too close to red ink for Natasha, and Bucky knows it.

If they’d been friends back in the forties, Bucky would have promised her a clean ledger, leaned in with an easy grin and a reassuring sparkle in his eye until she believed it too. But this isn’t the forties and Nat isn’t one of the girls he charmed for little favors like teaspoons of sugar. Bucky isn’t the same man, either—the weight on his left side and the phantom ache in his brain make sure he won’t forget anytime soon.

“—right, Buck?”

Bucky jolts back to the present at the sound of Steve calling him. “Huh?” he manages eloquently.

Sam cackles under his breath and Bucky relaxes—he hadn’t lost too much time, then.

“I was just saying,” Steve explains patiently (Bucky isn’t sure whether he’ll ever get used to scrawny Stevie taking on this caring persona, or if he’ll ever not be able to stop himself from punching his best friend the instant it tips overboard into pity or patronization), “we should trail their target this time, see if we can get any clues as to what they’re after.”

“Oh.” It takes a moment for Bucky to process—after the initial flash of panic at any mention of you, he realizes that this is, in fact, a wonderful, brilliant proposal. “Sounds like a good plan,” he says, as unenthusiastically as he can.

Natasha’s lip curls into a canary-chomping smirk.

“Great. So, Nat, you got it?”

Steve’s question is almost entirely rhetorical, but Natasha answers anyway, half-scoffing. Just to drive it in.

“Relax, old man. I can tail a mark with one hand tied behind my back.”

She’s looking at Steve when she says it, but Bucky doesn’t miss the millisecond that her eyes slide over to him. Internally, he groans. He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Natasha knows he took out his earpiece (and mic) to ask about the color of his own eyes—and he’s pretty sure she knows why he did it too.

“Anyways, where are you taking your date?”

Bucky takes a swig from his cup, glancing up when Steve prompts him with a nudge to the side. All three of them are looking at him expectantly; Bucky hasn’t felt this lost since the Queens kid rattled off a list of “hashtags” and asked for his “handle”.

“Same time next week,” Steve quotes with the same devious grin that had gotten him a two-step with Felicia Miller in December of ’36. Natasha’s grin freezes before she raises an eyebrow at Bucky, daring him to come clean.

“You sure that’s still on the books?” Sam prods, stacking his feet atop one another and leaning back in his chair. “I don’t know if throwing someone over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes is the most romantic gesture.”

Bucky quells the urge to throw yet another inanimate object at Sam, directing his irritation into his pizza with an aggressive bite instead. “Your wife tell you that?”

Natasha polishes off her second slice and reaches for a third. “Are you two done nagging, or should I make some popcorn?”

For what must be at least the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes, you sit up straighter in your booth and surreptitiously glance behind you. The café around you looks exactly the same as it did during your last survey, and the one before that.

Still, you can’t shake the feeling of eyes on your back. Slowly, you turn back to your brunch and the book you’d brought along to accompany it. A bite of frittata makes its way to your mouth, but it’s tasteless. Carefully, you flip the page, but don’t read a word of what’s in front of you.

The chatter of the café presses in on you from all sides: the barista is cheerfully explaining their specialty drinks of the day to a customer, the three tables nearest to yours are all engaging in what seems to be three separate dramatic retellings of the same cheating (or catfishing, you can’t quite tell) couple, and jazzy piano plinks out faintly over it all.

You spear another bite on your fork and chew. The prickling on the back of your neck hasn’t eased up, but the bright sunlight is helping dissipate your paranoia. Besides, you allow yourself to (semi)-flippantly remind yourself, The Man has swooped in to save you for the past three months. Why not today?

The hint of a grin curves your lips up at the thought. Your last encounter had been two days ago now, and you were still reeling.

_So, same time next week?_

Your cheeks heat ever so slightly at the memory—it was stupid! Totally stupid to think about at all, let alone hopefully. He hadn’t even answered—so why couldn’t you stop thinking about it?

 _Sure thing, doll_ , you imagine him saying back. He’d called you “doll”. And that accent that had come out! God, his eyes were dreamy…

“Everything alright here?”

You jerk, sending your fork clattering against the plate. The waiter who’d asked you looks on with undisguised concern as you grab at the utensil and slam it to silence against the table.

“Yes,” you answer firmly, “thank you.”

The waiter nods and moves on, clearly eager to leave you to whatever they thought you’d been up to.

At the coffee bar, Natasha turns from her riveting conversation with the barista about coffee extraction to pick up her phone and pretend to connect it to her comm unit.

“Bad news.”

Bucky’s voice crackles back almost immediately: “What? What’s wrong, where are you?”

Natasha sighs exaggeratedly. “The same place I’ve been all day. Why would you ever fall for someone who takes over an hour to finish one slice of frittata?”

“Jesus, Nat—and look, I haven’t _fallen_ for anyone—”

“Sure, sure, so you don’t mind if I double dose the tea next time? I just realized I forgot to mix it in last time! You know, I could just take care of it right now, I’m pretty sure there’s still coffee in that cup…”

“…very funny.”

A jingle from the front door signals the entrance of a new customer; you glance up and return to your brunch, momentary interest thoroughly extinguished by the unfamiliar face.

Natasha, however, affords the newcomer a slightly longer look. He slides into a booth two away from yours and orders seemingly at random, pointing at the neighboring table and nodding distractedly. His eyes never stray too far from your table, and Natasha finds her interest piqued.

“You don’t happen to feel like playing hero, do you?” she asks her macchiato.

Bucky stays silent, so she switches radio channels with a casual flick of her thumb over the earpiece.

“Mouse has sprouted a second tail.”

Steve’s voice crackles back almost immediately: “Any familiar faces? Don’t engage unless necessary.”

“No worries, Cap.”

Natasha’s eyes slide over as you sigh, shut your book, and call over a waiter. Two booths away, the Tail leans forward and stirs his coffee with the handle of his spoon.

You sign the receipt and fold a few bills over the tab.

“Mouse and tail are on the move, I’m following.”

“Roger that.”

The door chimes and Natasha watches the Tail powerwalk after you; she digs out a ten and tosses it on the bar counter before striding out. For someone kidnapped on a semi-regular basis, you don’t do a very good job of throwing your pursuer off the trail; you New York-meander down the block and pause at the corner to throw an appreciative glance at the wraparound floral and LED window display, all without a second look at your surroundings.

Then again, Natasha muses to herself, the guy following you isn’t doing his job very well either. He follows (far too close, she adds disdainfully) with a single-minded determination, speed-walking past pedestrian traffic with a scowl. Well, at least it makes _her_ part significantly easier to play.

From her casual lean against a building where she’s pretending to take a phone call, Natasha watches you stride across the street and past the subway entrance.

“Brown hair and eyes, six foot. Civilian clothes: green hoodie, blue jeans, Timberlands,” she rattles off before nonchalantly following you from a distance into a bookshop.

You drift from shelf to shelf, running a stray hand over a spine or two as you pass. The door jingles and your head snaps up, eyes locking onto the newcomer—but it’s a woman in a tan overcoat who heads straight for the biography section. Visions of the Man’s broad shoulders dance in front of you as you turn away; he would lean against the end of that bookshelf and launch a disarmingly mischievous grin at you, then offer to get you the book your fingertips were currently brushing…

You decide to leave the romance section.

Your abrupt departure leads you in quick succession to the display of new poetry collections, then the new Austen-inspired space opera series, and finally the dusty, cloistered back corner of outdated SAT guides and books abandoned by overly-devoted and fickle customers alike.

“Finally.”

And like Pavlov’s dogs, you whip your head up eagerly—the disappointment only has a moment to set in before the man in front of you lunges forward and clamps a wet rag over your mouth.

Natasha hisses into her copy of _Life from the Dreamatorium: Abed Nadir_ , “You have seven seconds, Barnes,” before shoving it back on the shelf and stalking towards the back corner.

You smack the man’s hand away and jam your knee upwards with all the force you have. It connects and he staggers back, swearing. You take a break from wiping your mouth to spit, “Chloroform takes five minutes of inhalation to work, dumbass. You think you’re the first one to try it?”

He takes a break from dropping a barrage of f-bombs to start threatening several anatomically impossible things, and you realize that for all your bluster, you have no plan.

A hand lands on your shoulder and you jump halfway out of your skin, accompanied by a panicked yell—or, at least, what _would_ have been a panicked yell if another, freezing cold, hand hadn’t muffled it.

“Hey.”

The hand on your mouth falls away, but you’re in too much shock to react, aside from making a few incoherent noises. You know this voice—and he sounds mildly abashed.

“Sorry about that. Didn’t want to make a scene.”

The Man seems to suddenly realize that his other hand is still resting on your shoulder; he snatches it back and tugs the brim of his cap down further over his face.

You resist the urge to peer into his shadowed features and quip to cover the tremble in your voice, “You know, there are easier ways to reschedule a date. Flowers and a note, radio call-in, carrier pigeon.”

His mouth drops slack for a second before he recovers. He shakes his head and you can hear a trace of laughter when he says, “I’ll keep that in mind. For now…let’s get outta here.”

He sounds like he’d have a nice laugh. Warm and rolling, like the bloom of a hot drink on a winter night.

“Yeah, okay. Don’t potato-sack carry me though.”

He does have a nice laugh.

Natasha watches from behind a bookshelf as Bucky leads you out through the backdoor. Without moving, she says under her breath, just loud enough for her mic to pick it up, “We’re a team, or we’re nothing at all. Keep that in mind.”

The man at her feet groans, straining against the hoodie-string she’d used to tie his hands and ankles together after hitting him with a Bite, and she sighs. Natasha leans down halfway, pulls him up with a fist in the front of his hoodie, and tells him with a dangerously calm smile, “We’re going to have a little chat now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOHOO we're back in business babey

**Author's Note:**

> Helloooo~  
> First time (ever!) writing Bucky, so please let me know what you think! Next chapter is more Bucky-centric and will clear up a lot of the questions from this one! 
> 
> (Also, if you're wondering why I'm posting this instead of a Loki chapter, my laptop is momentarily out of action, so I don't have access to my WIP files. :'( )


End file.
